Momentum
by Cravat of Doom
Summary: It hurt so much, but she had to keep going because what would happen if she didn't was even worse. An examination of Chell's movements through the Aperture Science laboratory. Hiatus.


_**Prologue**_

It's dark, and no one can see. No one can see the metal grates or the high ceilings whose only purposes seem to be making the room louder and colder. Crumbs from food eaten weeks ago lay scattered beneath my bare feet. All the feet are bare in this place, this horrible room which has neither a beginning nor an ending... Just a circle with no windows.

I continue sidling the wall and immediately recoil after touching something with my foot. Cold flesh marked with the recognizable smell of decay registers on my senses. The room is crowded with bodies both live and dead, but it makes no difference to _them _what state we are in. After all, there are plenty of us to spare.

I eventually make it to where I had wished to arrive; a large box-like device about waist high made of hard plastic and rubber. It has a faint heat emitting from it, though what produces this energy I could not begin to guess. I only know that it keeps me from getting too cold. Others avoid this square because of the concentration of flies, but to me it's worth it.

I barely remember sunlight. In fact, I doubt my eyes work at all. I have not seen anything in over two years. Or that's what they tell us, every year since we were brought here during the raid. I suspect it's been longer, but they keep the time span less to prevent psychosis. We'd all go crazy and lose our minds. When that happens to someone, a loud snap is heard and they fall to the floor to become one with their friends who had snapped long ago.

To feed us, there are compartments in the high ceiling that open and drop soft food. Anything harder than a tomato would immediately kill us on impact. It's happened when they experimented with apples a few months ago. According to the voice that fills the room on occasion through some speakers on the walls, seventeen people died. Complementary air freshener was then dispensed through holes less than a foot above the ground. It smelled awful.

Then they tell us to jump. More and more each day, with the eventual outcome having us jump up and down for six hours every day. The task alone managed to kill a quarter of us the first week. This, in a melancholically positive way, was vital to our survival,_ to our success._.. Way too many people are in here now, but at the beginning...

They got us to jump as high as we could. The floor would rise and fall accordingly until we were jumping at least twelve feet in the air, with special attachments clamped to our legs and feet to allow such heights without pain or gravity preventing it. Our jumping is less now than it used to be, but it's still quite often that we must jump for them. And I have no idea why.

They say that our lives our valuable, but that is an outright lie. They do not value us more than one would value a fly crawling across the floor, as so many do in this confined space. We are just here to jump for them, waiting for a possible chance of freedom. Somebody was released a hundred days or so ago... He hasn't returned.

I almost didn't see him go, but I was sleeping near him when the people in (what sounded like) rubber came with a tranquilizer and injected him before he knew what was going on. They carried him away without an objection from anyone. Nobody knew. Many things go on in this place that people do not want to know. Do not want to know, and do not know how to know. The ability to comprehend has gotten smaller.

There are no beds in here to sleep on, so we get the floor. In fact, there is nothing other than us, living and not living... And three pillows. But I've never had one. They're probably a trap anyway... Everything pleasant in here turns out to be horrific at one point or another. Just ask the people with the chocolate... If there were any left.

_W...w..._

Am I scared? It's all in the point of view you observe it from. You could consider me scared, but when you realize that this is the feeling I have every day, it's more of a normal feeling than a scared one. Because there's no change. And something that never changes is considered normal. However, if you take into account that my heart rate is thirty percent higher than they say it should be, then yes. I could be called scared.

_We...w..._

I'd give anything to know why we are here. I could not imagine that jumping is all that they want us to do. It would have been too much trouble. There are so many people in such a little room; it has to have a reason behind it.

_We...wel..._

It's like a horrible prison, really. A few years ago, the area where I lived was attacked with nuclear weapons in a steady stream of explosions for nine days. Nine days of hell in which most of the population was blown to dust. They took the remaining living people and threw us in here without a word or anything. So now we jump.

_Welco..._

I believe I overheard the name of this place once a long time ago when the people in rubber came to take that nameless person away.

_Welcome to the..._

I don't remember what it was called, though. Some research institution. I doubt, however, that they are doing research on something positive.

Just as I manage to warm up against the box, a loud hissing noise followed by the presence of light pulls me away from the heat. I can see a door being opened.

Although the light can't be that bright, I have to squint to get used to seeing _anything. _Two people in what are probably the same rubber suits as before come in and scan the crowds of bodies.

_Welcome to the Ap..._

I lose consciousness as something hits my head. The vaguely familiar scent of air freshener burns my nose.

_Welcome to the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center._


End file.
